Two years ago, Manu Ginobili averaged 21.4 points and 4.2 assists in the five games he played against the Grizzlies in the first round of the 2011 playoffs.

Then, he was playing with a brace on a broken right arm that restricted full extension of the limb.

It wasn't quite playing with one arm behind his back, but it was close enough.

The ultra-competitive guard doesn't like discussing the limitations with which he played during the eighth-seeded Grizzlies' upset of the top-seeded Spurs that year.

“I really hate talking about this,” he said. “It's like I'm finding an excuse. Of course, I was weakened. My shot was not smooth because of the limitation of my arm. But I played and I did my best and I worked hard and I think I did OK.”

If Ginobili is more than OK in the Spurs' Western Conference finals test against the Grizzlies that begins Sunday afternoon at the AT&T Center, he and teammates Tim Duncan and Tony Parker will make their fourth appearance together in an NBA Finals, a Big Three journey for the ages.

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At 35, Ginobili has lost some of the quickness and explosive lift that once prompted Charles Barkley to comment on his exploits simply by screaming his name into a microphone.

What he has not lost is the competitive nature that has made him one of the best players of the past decade.

There's a reason Gregg Popovich limits Ginobili to 23 minutes a game during the regular season and sends him home from the occasional road trip a day early: It's so he can play him 30 minutes in a competitive playoff series like the one he helped the Spurs survive against the Warriors.

Ginobili snatched Game 1 from the Warriors the Spurs didn't deserve to win by making an improbable 3-pointer. He found a way to overcome his errant shooting in series-clinching Game 6 with some deft passing.

Duncan has been the rock upon which the Spurs dynasty has been built since 1997, and Parker is now what Popovich calls “the head of the snake,” the player who makes the team go. But Ginobili is still the one Popovich most trusts to make the right plays in crunch time.

It was Ginobili who found a struggling Parker for a 3-pointer after the Warriors had sliced a double-figure Spurs lead to two points with 3:35 remaining in Game 6 at Oracle Arena.

Ginobili's perfect pass was his 10th assist of the game. His 11th found Parker again, this time for a dagger three with 1:15 left.

After emerging from the Golden State series with his hamstrings intact, Ginobili approaches the West finals from a different place unlike where he was two years ago. A freak injury in the final game of the regular season made him a spectator in Game 1 against the Grizzlies, and a one-armed man for the last five.

“Oh, that definitely helps,” he said of his recovery from the right hamstring strain that sidelined him for all but one game during this regular season's final three weeks. “I started a little hesitantly in the playoffs because I missed three weeks. I played 30 minutes average against the Warriors and I felt good and I am feeling good.

“That's the good part.”

If the hammies hold — and he gets to use both arms over the next two weeks — the payoff should be a trip to the Spurs' fifth Finals.